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DRIVING THE DAY: White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough, in his five-network round-robin of Sunday shows this a.m., stressed that the basic question facing members of Congress right now is: Should there be consequences for those who use chemical weapons against innocent civilians, including children? McDonough repeatedly said the answer will be watched closely not just by Assad, but by his supporters in Iran and Hezbollah. McDonough did four of his interviews on-set, and talked by satellite to George Stephanopoulos, who was in New York. McDonough started shortly after 7 a.m., and was scheduled to wrap before 10 a.m.

--McDonough to Stephanopoulos, on ABC’s “This Week”: “What this is, George, is very clear: [a] targeted, consequential, limited attack against Assad forces and Assad capabilities so that he is deterred from carrying out these actions again. Here is what it is not. It is not boots on the ground. It is not an extended air campaign. It is not Iraq, Afghanistan or Libya. This is a very concerned, concentrated, limited effort that we can carry out and that can underscore and secure our interests.” Transcripthttp://abcn.ws/1atNmkP

--McDonough to Chris Wallace, on “Fox News Sunday,” who said it “sure sounds like the president is going to abide by what Congress decides”: “As the president said, this is not an empty exercise. We are expending a great amount of energy and investment in trying to … make sure that Congress understands.”

DRIVING THE WEEK – JONATHAN KARL, from the White House lawn, on “This Week”: “This will be the biggest congressional effort by the White House since the battle over health care.”

--CANDY CROWLEY on CNN’s “State of the Union”: “Right now, the reality is the votes aren’t there.”

--OBAMA GIVES INTERVIEWS at the White House tomorrow to five network evening-news anchors, for use beginning at 6 p.m.: Gwen Ifill of PBS; Wolf Blitzer of CNN; Chris Wallace of Fox; Diane Sawyer of ABC; Scott Pelley of CBS; and Brian Williams or Savannah Guthrie of NBC, depending on what doctors say about Brian traveling following his knee-replacement surgery last month.

--A WHITE HOUSE OFFICIAL ticks off the flood-the-zone outreach: “On Friday, the President made calls to members of the House and Senate. … In the past two weeks the Administration has had discussions with at least 85 Senators and more than 165 House Members. … On Wednesday, Denis McDonough conducted calls with the Progressive Caucus and the Hispanic Caucus, [Deputy National Security Adviser] Tony Blinken held a conference call with Jewish House members. … On Thursday, the Vice President held a classified briefing for a bicameral group of members in the Situation Room. … On Friday, the Vice President held 2 more bicameral classified briefings in the White House situation room and Denis McDonough held separate calls with members of the Progressive Caucus and Democratic freshmen. …

“[Tonight], the Vice President will have dinner with a group of Republican senators. … On Monday, Sec. Kerry, Sec. Hagel, Amb. Rice and other senior administration officials will hold a briefing for all members of the House. Amb. Rice will also meet with the Congressional Black Caucus. … On Wednesday, Sec. Kerry, Sec. Hagel, Amb. Rice and other senior administration officials will hold a briefing for all members of the Senate. … Outreach is being done by the President himself, the Vice President, Secretary Kerry, Secretary Hagel and a wide array of the most senior officials in the Administration. That includes, of course, key national security figures like Denis McDonough, Susan Rice, Sam Power, Tony Blinken and top military and intelligence officials. … Since Monday, the Administration has held daily classified briefings on the Hill for any interested member.”

COUNTING THE VOTES --WashPost 2-col. lead, “Syria could stall Congress’s work: DIVISIVE DOMESTIC ISSUES PUT ON HOLD -- Obama urges support for military strike,” by Paul Kane, with David Nakamura: “The first hurdle to clear on the resolution is in the Senate, where winning approval for a strike is considered easier than in the House, but not certain. On Saturday, Mark Pryor (Ark.), who is locked in a tough 2014 reelection bid, became the fifth Senate Democrat to publicly oppose the resolution … Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid … will hold an early test vote Wednesday, when he will need 60 ‘ayes’ to formally open debate, with a more critical 60-vote hurdle coming later in the week. … A large majority of House Republicans do not favor the president’s push amid an outpouring … from constituents who opposed the resolution by about 10-to-1 margins in phone calls and e-mails … 111 House members have publicly declared their opposition to the Syria resolution and 115 are leaning against it based on their public statements, according to a whip count maintained by The Washington Post. Just 25 have announced outright support.” http://wapo.st/15NHydr

ENTER HILLARY! N.Y. Times A1, “Obama’s Battle For Syria Votes, Taut and Uphill,” by Mark Landler and Jonathan Weisman, with Jonathan Martin: “On the day the president is speaking, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee plans to blanket Capitol Hill with 250 advocates, having already contacted dozens of lawmakers to urge them to support a strike. The advocates will carry a simple message: … Syria is a proxy for Iran … ;Among the most visible surrogates could be Hillary Rodham Clinton, … who aides say is likely to address Syria at one or both of two events this week: a previously scheduled visit to the White House on Monday to promote wildlife conservation, and a speech the next day in Philadelphia.” http://nyti.ms/13vmmMr

RETIRED GEN. DAVID PETRAEUS, former CIA director under President Obama, issued a statement through POLITICO yesterday, calling strongly for Congress to back the White House on Syria, declaring that military action against the regime is “necessary” to deter “Iran, North Korea and other would-be aggressors.” “Failure of Congress to approve the president’s request would have serious ramifications not just in the Mideast but around the world,” Petraeus said in the four-sentence statement. In his years as U.S. commander in Iraq and Afghanistan, Petraeus was regarded by many Republican lawmakers as a god on military matters. So the imprimatur of the former four-star general could help Obama woo skeptical Republicans. The Petraeus statement follows endorsements by Hillary Clinton and Robert Gates.

--The full text of Petraeus’ statement: “I strongly support congressional approval of President Obama’s request for authority to undertake military action against the Syrian regime of Bashar al Assad. Such action is necessary in order to deter future use of chemical weapons in Syria and to degrade the regime’s overall military capabilities. Failure of Congress to approve the president’s request would have serious ramifications not just in the Mideast but around the world. Military action against the Syrian regime is, thus, necessary not just to deter future use of chemical weapons in Syria and elsewhere, but also to ensure that Iran, North Korea and other would-be aggressors never underestimate the United States’ resolve to take necessary military action when other tools prove insufficient.”

**A message from America's Mayors: Parents Send Congress Back to School on Background Checks -- Every day in America, seven kids are murdered with guns. That's why this week, supporters across the country are delivering seven backpacks filled with petitions to members of Congress, demanding background checks. Add your voice: http://maig.us/school. **

CLICK DU JOUR: JAKE TAPPER yesterday posted 13 videos of the Syrian sarin attack aftermath, shown to the Senate Intelligence Committee: “Men sprawled on a tile floor, shirtless and convulsing. Children, too, seemingly unable to control their shaking and flailing. Panic and screams in the background. These are some of the hard-to-stomach images that the Obama administration has shown a select group of senators in closed-door briefings to make the case that a limited military attack on Syria is justified.” http://bit.ly/17H3Cek

--The videos are now on the Senate Intelligence site: “Attached are 13 videos compiled by the [DNI] U.S. Open Source Center from videos taken in Damascus, Syria following the use of chemical weapons on August 21 … Warning: These videos contain disturbing images of dead bodies, including children. VIEWER DISCRETION IS ADVISED. … Each of these 13 videos explicitly claim to show victims of a chemical or poison gas attack. At the request of Chairman Feinstein, these videos were selected by the Open Source Center to depict a representative range of YouTube content posted regarding the reported 21 August chemical weapons (CW) attacks in the suburbs of Damascus, Syria. All of the videos were posted on YouTube by pro-Syrian opposition users. With one exception, all 13 videos were posted by a pro-opposition Internet news channel that consistently posts user-created videos concerning the Syrian conflict. … These videos were shown to the Intelligence Committee on Thursday.” http://1.usa.gov/13vAuoZ

--McDONOUGH to Candy Crowley on CNN’s “State of the Union”: “CNN, in fact, ran these videos yesterday. You've seen the video proof of the outcome of those attacks. … Now, do we have a picture or do we have irrefutable, beyond-a-reasonable doubt evidence? … This is not a court of law. And intelligence does not work that way.”

“SHOT ACROSS BOW” GROWS -- L.A. Times 1-col. lead, “U.S. widens Syria attack plan: The Pentagon is expanding the target list and weighing the use of warplanes to launch missiles,” by David S. Cloud, with Henry Chu in London: “The Pentagon is preparing for a longer bombardment of Syria than it originally had planned, with a heavy barrage of missile strikes followed soon after by more attacks on targets that the opening salvos missed or failed to destroy … The planning for intense attacks over a three-day period reflects the growing belief in the White House and the Pentagon that the United States needs more firepower to inflict even minimal damage on Syrian President Bashar Assad's forces, which have been widely dispersed over the last two weeks … [T]he White House asked for an expanded target list … to include many more than the 50 or so targets on the initial list. … Pentagon planners are weighing whether to use Air Force bombers, in addition to five warships now on patrol in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, to launch cruise missiles and air-to-surface missiles from hundreds of miles offshore, well out of range of Syrian air defenses.” http://lat.ms/15GbGZ5

--FLASHBACK – Jonathan Karl, in Russia, to Diane Sawyer on “World News” on THURSDAY: “ABC News has learned the President's national security team is preparing for a significantly larger military attack … The air campaign, which is expected to last at least two days, will potentially include an aerial bombardment of missiles and long-range bombs fired from B-2 and B-52 bombers flying from the United States, … in addition to a relentless assault from Tomahawk cruise missiles fired from those Navy destroyers in the eastern Mediterranean. Those ships are loaded with nearly 200 missiles; plans call for firing the vast majority of them. As one senior national security official told ABC News, this military strike could do more damage to Assad's forces in 48 hours than the Syrian rebels have done in nearly two years of civil war. That's more than President Obama seemed to be suggesting just days ago.”

THE BACKSTORY -- N.Y. Times 2-col. lead, “With the World Watching, Syria Amassed Nerve Gas: A Witches’ Brew Created by Western Laxity, Ruses, Loopholes and Kremlin Aid,” by David E. Sanger in D.C., and Andrew W. Lehren and Rick Gladstone in N.Y.: “Soon after Mr. Obama came to office, newly installed officials grew increasingly alarmed by the ease with which Mr. Assad was using a network of front companies to import the precursors needed to make VX and sarin, deadly chemical poisons that are internationally banned, according to … cables from WikiLeaks … The diplomatic cables and other intelligence documents show that, over time, … two generations of Assads built up a huge stockpile by creating companies with the appearance of legitimacy, importing chemicals that had many legitimate uses and capitalizing on the chaos that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union. A Russian general responsible for dismantling old Soviet chemical weapons, who died a decade ago, was identified by a colleague as the man who helped the Syrian government establish its chemical weapons program.

“As early as 1991, under the first Bush presidency, a now declassified National Intelligence Estimate concluded that ‘both Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union provided the chemical agents, delivery systems and training that flowed to Syria.’ The same report concluded that Syria most likely possessed 500-kilogram aerial bombs containing sarin — larger, it appears, than the warheads mounted atop rockets that killed so many in the Ghouta suburbs of Damascus on Aug. 21.” http://nyti.ms/1aWjWLn

SAVANNAH GUTHRIE has an exclusive with ANTHONY WEINER on “Meet the Press” (taped yesterday in Isham Park in Manhattan), who said: “From the moment go, I was waging this campaign on a bet. And the bet was basically that I know that people have embarrassing things they would hear about me and did know about me and my background. But I also knew that I had the best ideas and I'd be the best mayor for the city. So before we do post-mortems on what happens if I lose, let's have the campaign and let's see if I win. … And after I serve two terms, perhaps we can have that conversation.”

GUTHRIE: “Are you really saying that with a straight face?” …

WEINER: “In the highest of the highs, the lowest of the lows in this campaign, when there are 15 cameras from Malaysian TV shouting a question at me, I'm still talking about issues every single day. I just came from doing an event to talking about issues important to the middle class. … No one gets to go back and redo things. … I'm convinced that the decision I made was the right one, I'm convinced that I'm gonna be the next mayor of this city.”

--WEINER will be LIVE on “TODAY” tomorrow, a day ahead of the New York Democratic primary.

HAPPENING TOMORROW – “Hoops for Youth Foundation Announces Rosters for Members vs. Lobbyists and Staff vs. Lobbyists Charity Basketball Game … [tomorrow] at 6 p.m. at the George Washington University Smith Center. … ‘This event started 15 years ago as a way for lobbyists, staffers and members of Congress to give back to the kids of D.C.,’ said Hoops for Youth Foundation Chairman of the Board of Directors Paul Miller. … Members’ coach: John Thompson III, Georgetown … Lobbyists’ coach: Keith Urgo, Penn State …

SPORTS BLINK – “Olympics: Tokyo gets 2020 Games with help from prime minister,” by Reuter’s Ossian Shine in Buenos Aires: “Tokyo was awarded the 2020 summer Olympic Games on Saturday, beating Istanbul in a head-to-head vote after Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe delivered a charismatic plea to the International Olympic Committee and promised Japan's crippled nuclear plant was ‘under control.’ The Japanese capital won what one insider had called a ‘least-ugly’ contest by most effectively covering its blemishes. Rival Madrid has been laid low by the economy and Istanbul has been beset by anti-government protests. Tokyo won by a landslide, 60 votes to Istanbul's 36, after Madrid was eliminated in a first round of voting. … Tokyo in its pitch highlighted its solid finances and strong track record of delivering on promises. Olympic President Jacques Rogge described it as ‘a safe pair of hands.’

“The next summer Olympics will be hosted by Rio de Janeiro in 2016, and the preparations for that Games have been plagued by delays and complications. Moreover, the Tokyo bid capitalizes on the potential of the Asian continent, with its increasingly consumer-focused economies. Winning the Games was an enormous prize after two years of intense lobbying and tens of millions of dollars spent, and Abe was thrilled. … For Istanbul, it was its fifth unsuccessful bid in the last six votes to host a summer Olympics. The city had pitched itself as a new region for the Games, the crossroads of Europe and Asia, and as a vehicle to help foster peace in the Middle East. But the conflict in neighboring Syria and recent anti-government demonstrations in Turkey overshadowed the bid. … The victory is expected to boost Abe's popularity, and could potentially spur his signature pro-growth policies for the world's third-biggest economy. A successful Tokyo bid should boost confidence as well as spur construction and tourism.”

--COLLEGE FOOTBALL – AP’s “Top 25 Rdp: 'Canes give ACC another win over SEC: “Miami made it two big victories for the Atlantic Coast Conference against the Southeastern Conference in the first two weeks of the college football season. The Hurricanes beat mistake-prone No. 12 Florida 21-16 on Saturday. Add that to Clemson's victory against Georgia and the ACC can come away feeling good about its early season showing against the league that has won the last seven national championships. Ultimately, it was a split of four spotlight matchups. No. 1 Alabama beat Virginia Tech handily and South Carolina whipped North Carolina in the opening weekend of the season. But considering all the grief the ACC generally takes for not being able to stand up to the mighty SEC, .500 is looking solid.

“‘How about that ACC? Spunky little old league?’ Clemson coach Dabo Swinney said after his Tigers had an easy follow-up victory against South Carolina State on Saturday. Miami needed a lot of help from Florida. The Gators had five turnovers and numerous empty trips to the red zone. Florida outgained Miami 413-212, but Stephen Morris threw a couple of TD passes and the Hurricanes held on.”

BIRTHDAY TOMORROW: Michael Greenwald, European policy adviser for the Treasury Department's Office of Terrorist Financing and Financial Crime, will be 30. He’s celebrating tonight with family and friends at Cafe Milano in Georgetown. (hat tip: Will Rich)

**A message from America's Mayors: Parents Send Congress Back to School on Background Checks

Every day in America, seven kids are murdered with guns. That's why this week supporters across the country are delivering seven backpacks filled with petitions to members of Congress.

The more than 1000 mayors and 1.5 million grassroots supporters of Mayors Against Illegal Guns are reminding Congress that background checks are the single most effective way to prevent gun violence and save lives.